Chapter 8 - THE CRACKING FOUNDATION
Back in Manhattan, the empire of Adrian Moretti was eating itself alive from the inside out.
Three months had passed since Claire had vanished into thin air.
Adrian had abandoned his penthouse, unable to step foot into the rooms that still carried the faint scent of her jasmine perfume.
Instead, he slept on the leather sofa in his corner office, working twenty hours a day and drinking Scotch like water.
His board members were terrified of him; his underworld lieutenants avoided his gaze.
Every week, Marcus brought the same infuriating answer: no hits on her Social Security number, no bank activity, no facial recognition matches.
Adrian sat behind his vast desk, holding the crinkled sonogram photo between his calloused fingers.
The tiny image was wearing thin from how often he touched it.
He had framed it in heavy gold and kept it beside his desk monitors like an altar of penance.
“She is out there somewhere, Marcus,” Adrian whispered, his voice hoarse from lack of sleep.
“She is fourteen weeks pregnant now.”
“Her belly is showing.”
“She is carrying my child, and she is buying groceries alone, walking down streets alone, while I sit in this golden tomb.”
Marcus stood silently, pitying the most feared man in the city.
Suddenly, a junior cyber analyst knocked frantically on the office door and hurried inside.
“Mr. Moretti, we found a break,” the analyst stammered, placing a tablet on the desk.
Adrian jumped up so fast his leather chair crashed backward onto the floor.
“What did you find?”
“We traced an anonymous query into the New York Bar Association database from two days ago,” the analyst explained quickly.
“Someone was checking the validity of the divorce filing you refused to sign.”
“The query came through a proxy server routed through Bangor, Maine.”
“We cross-referenced that server with satellite IP pings on local business networks along the coastline.”
“A small fishing cooperative in Havenbrook submitted an automated tax form yesterday signed by a bookkeeper named ‘Claire Evans.’”
Adrian’s heart stopped beating for an entire, terrifying second.
*Havenbrook.*
A coastal village six hundred miles away.
He looked down at the signature on the screen; it was her handwriting.
The exact, beautiful, elegant cursive that had left him that fatal note on his desk.
Adrian didn't issue orders to his men.
He didn't call for a tactical team or summon a motorcade.
He grabbed his heavy overcoat from the rack, snatched the keys to his personal black SUV, and headed straight for the elevator.
“Adrian, wait!” Marcus yelled, chasing him into the corridor.
“Let me send an advance unit to secure the perimeter! If the Russo family catches wind of your location—”
“If you send a single armed soldier near that town, Marcus, I will put a bullet in your knee,” Adrian roared, the elevator doors sliding shut between them.
“This is my wife.”
May you like
“This is my child.”
“I will face her alone.”
